same here, it is not the CD, but the 7.1 and the rumour from Pany that it will be udated through FW to decode DTS-HD and DTHD

Really? Where'd you hear that? Be nice to get a first generation player capable of that (although it would ALSO be nice to get a player capable of ALL the supported HD audio formats - again, why aren't I seeing these?).

well from the start it does PCM,Dolby Digital, Dolby® Digital Plus, DTS® and MP3 audio decoding so it is only missing those two (for BD)

also like I said a future FW upgrade so not out of the box and by then maybe others will do it as well

[Link: avsforum.com]
also
[Link: avsforum.com]
(but at least the info he gets from the Toshiba rep is a bit unreliable and he tends to be a bit "elastic" - down play bad news and up play good news)
and
[Link: avsforum.com]
Darin tends to be pretty reliable and good at reading between the lines.


PS The PS3 looks like it will have all the decodings as well but I don’t know if it is 7.1 or only 5.1

Oh no.......not links to avsforums

Hmm, yeah, the PS3 is a very viable Blu-Ray alternative - and if the PSP is anything to go by there will be firmware updates/improvements galore - but I wonder how easy it will be to get one this year. :-)

It will be wasy to get, if you shell out a few grand on ebay. Nerds around the world are already lining up at Best Buy.

I don't think anyone will debate that. But you asked about players and all the codecs and it is the only other one that looks to have them all.

As to why not include full 7.1 for all the codecs that can support them. I would guess there is cost as well as in most situations you need to change it to lossy before sending it out to the receiver. If you decode and then send DTS or DD to the receiver then why decode it and not just strip and decode the DD and DTS.

Blu-ray firmware update status
Engineer at factory provided the following to determine firmware status of Samsung Blu-ray players:
You can see the firmware version if you press “Info Key” of remote control for 3~4 seconds with tray open
Example: If the display reads "PSD : 060719.1", then the version was created on July, 19 2006. Meaning, 06 is year, 07 is month and 19 is day

If version is before 060719, then noise filter is turned on and the player needs firmware update
If version is on or later than 060719 then noise filter is turned off and player does NOT need firmware update

Regarding the Java sticker from the previous memo, Samsung cannot confirm that a Java sticker denotes the firmware upgrade has been made

If firmware upgrade is required, refer dealers and consumers to sign up with Samsung to receive notifications of software upgrades at [Link: samsung.com]